George Arcana

Calm

Talent: Animism or Psychic
Time: Major Action Tn: Opposed
Test: Communication (Animism or Psychic)
Resistance: Will Power (self-discipline)
Fatigue: none

You clear a subject’s mind of intense emotion, creating a state of calm and clarity. You must be in psychic contact with the subject. An unwilling subject makes a resistance test against your test result. A subject under the effects of Calm is free of any intense emotion and incapable of aggressive or violent action for as long as you concentrate. Any aggressive action against the subject ends the effect. Calm can also counteract any emotion-affecting arcana, such as Heart Shaping, with a successful opposed Calm test against the target arcanum’s test result.

Object Reading

Talent: Visionary Time: Major Action
Tn: Varies (see description)
Test: Perception (Visionary) Resistance: none
Fatigue: test result (Active reading only)

You can read psychic impressions left on places and objects, getting images of the past, as if you were actually present at a particular past event.

ACTIVE READING

You can attempt to see the past of a particular place or object you are touching. This requires a major action and an Object Reading test. Active Object Reading is fatiguing, with a target number equal to the test result.

SPONTANEOUS READING

Your ability may also spontaneously activate at the Narrator’s discretion when you are in contact with an object with particularly strong psychic impressions. This still requires an Object Reading test but is not fatiguing. The Narrator should make Object Reading tests secretly so the player doesn’t necessarily know if a particular vision is accurate or not. Consult the table for the results of a vision, based on the result of the Object Reading test.

Target Number	Result
9	A vague vision that may not be accurate
11	A brief and accurate vision of the events
13	A longer vision of the events, encompassing everything that took place in a particular place and time
15	The ability to move the vision backward or forward in time to review the event
17	The ability to track the vision backward through time and space to trace an event to its origin
19	Near complete knowledge of a particular past event and everything involving it

Impressions read from objects generally count as slightly familiar for the purposes of determining familiarity for other arcana, possibly more if the vision was long or extremely accurate (in the Narrator’s opinion). See Familiarity at the start of this chapter. Adepts can use Object Reading to gain enough familiarity with an otherwise unfamiliar subject to reach or affect them with other arcana.

Psychic Contact

Talent: Animism or Psychic
Time: Minor Action Tn: 7 + Familiarity
Test: Communication (Animism or Psychic)
Resistance: Psychic shield or WillPower (self-discipline)
Fatigue: none

You can establish contact between your mind and that of an animal (Animism) or person (Psychic). The base target number is modified by familiarity. If the subject is unwilling or has Psychic Shield in place, you have to make separate tests to overcome their resistance. If you do not want the subject to know you are initiating psychic contact, you can make a separate opposed test against the subject’s Perception (Psychic) or Psychic Shield test. If you succeed, the subject is unaware of your attempt. If you fail, the subject is aware of your attempt.

While in psychic contact with another mind, the two of you can communicate at the rate of normal speech, “hearing” each other’s thoughts. You can also send a single sensory image or impression rather than speaking. Both you and the subject can choose to lie or omit information; you’re “speaking” to each other psychically, not reading each other’s thoughts. Psychic contact is two-way, meaning you are in contact with the subject and they are in contact with you for the purposes of arcana.

EJECTING AN INTRUDER

If a friendly psychic contact turns hostile, the subject can make an opposed Willpower (Self-Discipline) or Psychic Shield test against your Psychic Contact test to break contact. Once the subject has failed an attempt to eject a psychic intruder, further attempts to break contact are fatiguing. If psychic contact is broken, then other arcana reliant on psychic contact are also broken.

RAPPORT

Two or more people with Psychic Contact can enter psychic rapport, an intense state of psychic sharing. Each establishes psychic contact with the other(s), each of whom must be willing. Characters in rapport are like one mind, each instantly aware of everything the other thinks and experiences and able to share information instantly. Characters in rapport cannot deliberately lie or deceive each other, or conceal information from each other, making it a very intimate experience.

DEATHCRY

If someone you are in psychic contact with dies, you must make a successful TN 15 Willpower or Psychic Shield test to avoid being stunned for one round by the psychic feedback. If you are in psychic rapport with another creature that dies, and fail the Willpower or Psychic Shield test, you are reduced to 0 Health and dying as well! A creature can deliberately avoid letting out a deathcry when dying with a successful TN 15 Willpower (any focus) test.

Psychic Shield

Talent: Any Time: Free Action
Tn: none Test: Willpower (Psychic)
Resistance: none Fatigue: none

You can shield your mind from arcane influences. When you are the target of any arcana granting a Willpower resistance test, you can make an opposed Psychic Shield test first. The attacker makes an arcane test using the attacking arcanum. If you win the opposed test, the attack fails. If the attacker wins, the psychic arcanum affects you normally, but you still get a normal resistance test. Your shield doesn’t block arcana requiring psychic contact, so long as the other adept remains in psychic contact with you (“inside” your shield). Your Psychic Shield is useful for blocking the initial unwanted Psychic Contact.

You may choose to voluntarily lower your Psychic Shield as a free action, and can raise it again as a free action. Otherwise, your shield is always active, even if you are unconscious or sleeping.

SHIELDS AND MAINTAINED ARCANA

Once an arcanum has overcome your Psychic Shield, it continues to affect you as long as the other adept maintains it. You are still entitled to your normal resistance tests—if any—but your shield no longer protects you from that arcanum. Once the attacker needs to make a new arcane test, your shield comes into play again and must be overcome again with an opposed test.

OVERCOMING PSYCHIC SHIELDS

An attacker can choose to suffer a level of fatigue to automatically overcome your Psychic Shield. This is in addition to any fatigue caused by the arcanum used against you. If you also choose to suffer a level of fatigue, the attacker must still roll a normal opposed test to overcome your shield. This process takes no actual time; it happens as part of the test to overcome the Psychic Shield. An attacker trying to avoid notice (see Psychic Contact) cannot use this option, since it makes it immediately apparent that you are under psychic attack.

Psychic Weapon

Talent: Psychic Time: Minor Action
TN: none Test: none Resistance: none Fatigue: TN 12

You can create a melee weapon out of psychic energy. Take an Activate action to create the weapon, which appears in your hand. What type of weapon it is and what it looks like are up to you; its effects are the same regardless.

You wield a psychic weapon like a normal melee weapon, except you are automatically considered trained with it, whether you have the weapons group of that mundane type of weapon or not. You wield the weapon using Accuracy (Arcane, or the appropriate focus for the weapon’s type), even if it looks like a big two-handed weapon.

Your psychic weapon inflicts 2d6 penetrating damage on a hit and adds your Perception score to its damage. You can perform combat stunts with your psychic weapon and attack rolls with it can generate stunt points.

A psychic weapon is immaterial and only affects creatures. It has no effect on objects, meaning it cannot block material weapons, but two psychic weapons can block or parry each other. If your psychic weapon is somehow knocked from your grasp, it vanishes. You can summon it again with another Activate action. Your weapon also vanishes if you are stunned or unconscious.

Creating your psychic weapon is fatiguing; a TN 12 Willpower (Self-Discipline) test. The weapon lasts for the duration of the encounter or until you choose to dismiss it.

Second Sight

Talent: Any Time: Varies (see description)
TN: Varies (see description)
Test: Perception (Psychic or Visionary)
Resistance: none
Fatigue: none (TN 13 Read Arcane Signature)

You can sense the use and lingering effects of arcana. Make a Second Sight test to detect arcana in use in your vicinity, to sense an attempt at psychic contact, or to detect and read the “signature” left behind by arcana.

SENSE ARCANA

The Narrator makes a Second Sight test for you in secret as a free action whenever arcana are used in your general area. The base target number is 11 or the user’s Psychic Shield test result, whichever is greater, and the target number increases by +1 for every 10 feet between you and the user or subject of the arcanum (whichever is closer). A successful result means you sense an arcanum use and know which arcane talent it falls under, but not necessarily the exact arcanum. You also know the general direction and distance to the source of the effect and its target. With an Outcome of 2 or more, you know the exact arcanum used. With an Outcome of 4 or more, you recognize the arcanum user, if known to you.

SENSE PSYCHIC CONTACT

You make an opposed Second Sight test against the other adept’s Psychic Contact test as a reaction to know when someone is trying to secretly get into psychic contact with you. If you win the test, you sense the attempt, although you might not be able to avoid it (depending on your Psychic Shield and Willpower test results).

READ ARCANE SIGNATURE

If you have the Psychic and Visionary talents, you can “read” old uses of arcana in an area as a major action. The base target number is 13 to detect that arcana were used in the area in the past. With 2 points of Outcome, you determine what talent was used and roughly when. With 4 points of Outcome, you know exactly which arcanum was used and what or whom it was used on. Taking at least 10 minutes to read an area for arcane signatures gives you a +2 bonus on the test. Reading arcane signatures is fatiguing, with a resistance test TN of 13.

SECOND SIGHT

Target Number	Task
11 (+1 per 10-foot distance)	Sense Arcana
Opposed	Sense Psychic Contact
13 (+2 detect talent, +4 detect arcanum)	Detect Arcana Use

Visions

Talent: Visionary Time: Major Action
TN: Varies (see description)
Test: Perception (Visionary)
Resistance: none Fatigue: none

You get visions of the future, as if you were actually present at a particular future event. The visions you receive are by no means assured; the future can be changed by the actions of those in the present, but your visions are the most likely outcomes, should no action be taken to change them. You cannot interact with your visions. You are only an observer.

SPONTANEOUS VISIONS

At the Narrator’s discretion, you may receive a vision of the future unbidden when you are in contact with a subject or when there is a momentous event approaching. This vision can occur while you are awake, but spontaneous visions often take the form of dreams. You know when a dream is actually a vision; although, waking or dreaming, you may not necessarily know what the vision means.

DANGER SENSE

Whenever you would normally be surprised in combat, you can make a TN 11 Perception (Visionary) test as a free action. If successful, you receive a split-second premonition; you are not surprised and can act normally during the surprise round. The Narrator should make Visions tests secretly so the player doesn’t know if a particular vision is accurate or not. Consult the table for the results of a vision, based on the Visions test, or choose a suitable result, based on the hero’s test result and the requirements of the story. The Narrator can use spontaneous visions to foreshadow and drop hints about upcoming events in the story.

VISIONS

Target Number	Result
11	A vague vision of the future that may be accurate
13	An accurate glimpse of the future
15	Awareness of how long before a particular event occurs
17	Awareness of the people involved in a particular future event
19	Awareness of the time, subjects, and location of a future event
21	Near complete knowledge of a particular future event and everything involving it

Things seen in visions count as slightly familiar in terms of familiarity, possibly more if the vision was long or extremely accurate (in the Narrator’s opinion).